Parenting Quotes

I sometimes heard the parents of Michel's playmates sigh about how, after a busy day, they really needed "a moment to themselves." The children were in bed at last, and then came the magic moment, and not a minute earlier. I've always thought that was strange, because for me that moment began much earlier. When Michel came home from school, for example, and everything was as it should be. ~ Herman Koch

I appeal to parents: never, never say, "Hurry up," to a child. (62) ~ Vladimir Nabokov

It is very important to keep the communication lines flowing so that you develop mutual admiration and respect. ~ Kristen J. Duca

Mothering Oxymoron: Reminding the kids to not talk with food in their mouths, yet I have food in my mouth while trying to correct them in the moment. ~ Mommy Moo Moo

I wanted to explore this idea that the bogey man in the closet is scary, but being a mother is scarier. ~ Joe Hill

Many of the time-honored [parenting] techniques that have been passed down from generation to generation are, quite simply, bad advice masquerading as wisdom. ~ Susan Forward

As a young father it's important to remember that, when you're at the beach, there's a BIG difference between telling your five year old son to just go pee in the ocean and telling him to get in the water at least waist deep and then pee in the ocean. ~ Spuds Crawford

I think I'm going to have to live vicariously through my daughter's rebellion because I certainly never did go through adolescence. ~ Brooke Shields

As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended. ~ David W. Earle

Letting things slide is always the easiest thing to do, in parenting no less than in banking, public education, and environmental protection. A lack of discipline is apparent these days in just about every aspect of American society. Why? This should be is a much larger question, one to ponder as we take out the garbage and tie our kids' shoes. ~ Elizabeth Kolbert

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. ~ James Baldwin

I never thought to ascribe my mother's emotional and physical exhaustion to the lack of a husband and father; rather, I ascribed it to my existence. In other words, I grew up learning the exact opposite of what Eisenhower was taught. I learned that if I didn't exist, the family would be better off. I grew up believing that if I had never been born, things would be easier for the people I loved. (page 35) ~ Donald Miller

What parent has it easy? I just never make the difficulty of it an obstacle. I just do it. ~ Marlee Matlin

Setting boundaries isn't an alternative to loving your child. It is a means of loving her. ~ Henry Cloud

If Mother had to be told not to shove the entire brick of Ivory up Junior's hindquarters, constipation is the least of his problems. ~ James Lileks

Why is every mom's concern about sex? There are more important things in life, like school, careers, poetry, books, ice cream, or learning how to make the perfect chocolate cake. It's so damn frustrating. ~ Isabel Quintero

Two children he had had, and he had not seen either clearly. But perhaps no parent can truly see their child. When we look we see only the mirror of our own faults. ~ Madeline Miller

When you raise children very well, you prepare them to be good men and good women in the future. Raising children is hard and challenging, but it worth all the efforts. When your children tire you, remember that they are the saplings of the future, these are the people who will repay you for taking care of them and will take care of their communities as well. ~ Noora Ahmed Alsuwaidi

I wasn't someone who needed an infant. It wasn't important to me to make bottles or see first steps or hear first words. Kindergarten, grade school....I didn't need to do any of that. I wanted to be a father, but being a father is about a lifetime of parenting, not just little-kid stuff. ~ Jessica Park

Love, my child, is a thing that every mother learns; it is not born with a baby, but made; and for eleven years, I have learned to love you as my son. ~ Salman Rushdie

Autism is a neurological disorder. It's not caused by bad parenting. It's caused by, you know, abnormal development in the brain. The emotional circuits in the brain are abnormal. And there also are differences in the white matter, which is the brain's computer cables that hook up the different brain departments. ~ Temple Grandin

My need to parent is so much bigger, sometimes, than my children's need for parenting. ~ Margot Page

Once your baby arrives, the world is no more the same than you are. Because from our very bodies we add to the collective human destiny. Our deepest urge is always toward life, to wholeness and well being. ~ Claire Fontaine

By spending years and years living entirely for yourself, thinking only about yourself, and having responsibility to no one but yourself, you end up inadvertently extending the introverted existence of a teenager deep into middle age. ~ Danielle Crittenden

I was unhappy there and going through a rough transition, so I was desperate for any friend I could find that I could talk to. I thought that's what he was. We had this secret from my mom, who I didn't like much at the time. It was a harmless secret, so I didn't feel bad about it. All we did was go to the movies and hang out doing fun things all day. It wasn't until much later that the warning signs began, but I was still too young and stupid to see them for what they were at the time. Basically, he was patient as he built up the trust between us. He became a close friend and convinced me that he was on my side somehow. He took total advantage of my ignorance and totally betrayed me a few years later, when he slept with me. After my mom found out, she went psychotic and all she gave a fuck about was what had been done to her. She didn't care about anything except for how hurt she was by what had happened. She blamed me and him equally, telling me that sixteen years old was old enough to know better. Even though I never initiated a goddamn thing with him, and never would have. Even though it happened in the apartment she and I had gotten together, that he was not supposed to be staying in. ~ Ashly Lorenzana

Isn't it wonderful to give birth to your own kind? ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Blame or credit, does not belong to the child alone. Parents, those who raised the child, must be given equal credit, or blame. That does not change, when the child is one, twenty or ninety years old. ~ Omar Kiam

One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form. ~ Anne Fadiman

The hardest part about parenting is when I have to be The Dad
aka the Fun-Sucker
as opposed to being a friend. ~ James Patterson

So much time and energy, so much love and learning had gone into those long years of motherhood, and now, between a morning and a morning - or so it felt - they were over. It seemed that mothers of daughters had a more extended role but she knew that she was lucky to be allowed any part in her boys' lives and tried hard to be grateful and undemanding. It wasn't always easy, when she loved them so much, to practice detachment.... Odd that the last of the parenting skills should be the most painful: the final act of letting go. ~ Marcia Willett

I thought of all the magazine article I'd read on mothers who worked and constantly felt guilty about leaving their children with someone else. I had trained myself to read pieces like that and silently say to myself, 'See how lucky you are?' But it had been gnawing at the inside, that part that didn't fit, that I never let myself even think about. After all, wasn't it a worse kind of guilt to be with your child and to know that you wanted to be anywhere but there? ~ Jodi Picoult

What parents needed, I believed, wasn't another book about how they had to calm down and take a break. What they needed was an actual break from the deluge of parenting books. ~ Lori Gottlieb

Ironically, as some people become harder, they use softer words to describe dark deeds. This, too, is part of being sedated by secularism. Needless abortion, for instance, is a "reproductive health procedure, ... " "Illegitimacy" gives way to the wholly sanitized words "non-marital birth" or "alternative parenting." ~ Neal A. Maxwell

Dads. Do you not realize that a child is what you tell them they are? That people almost always become what they are labeled? Was whatever your child just did really the "dumbest thing you've ever seen somebody do"? Was it really the "most ridiculous thing they ever could have done"? Do you really believe that your child is an idiot? Because she now does. Think about that. Because you said it, she now believes it. Bravo. ~ Dan Pearce

I've tried to teach what I learned all those years in my mother and father's house, all those things I didn't realize I was learning and that I never knew I'd be so grateful for. When you have love and it's proffered every day in a kind of tender, yet stern insistence and even reckless laughter, when it is given to you and you accept it in life as a thing as natural as rain or snow, or the littler of leaves in fall, you can't help but take it for granted. For a bewildered while you incorrectly understand that the world has given you this becuase it's there in equal measure, everywhere. You never knowuntil it's too late to do anything about it, how seet the effort is: how lasting the human will to love can be in the breast of people who want to make it for you, who want to give it to you, without calculating what's in it fo them, without thinking at all of what it will mean when you grow to full adulthood, see the world as it is, and forget to mention what you have been given.

Ever day of my grown-up life, I have wanted to do what my parents did. I have wanted to widen the province of love and weaken hate and bitterness in the hearts of my children. And I've done these things because of what I got from my family, all those lovely years when I was growing up, being loved and cherished and, unbeknown to me, and in the best way, honored, for myself. ~ Marian Wright Edelman

The cultural insistence that parenting is the 'most important' job in the world is a smart way to satiate unappreciated women without doing a damn thing for them. ~ Jessica Valenti

In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us ... More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children. ~ Martin Luther

The one to whom nothing was refused, whose tears were always wiped away by an anxious mother, will not abide being offended.
- De Ira 2.21.6 ~ Seneca.

Parents drinking is the reason you came into the world, and if we didn't keep doing it then, by God, it would be the reason you went back out of it. ~ Caitlin Moran

Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest. ~ Debra Ginsberg

The true test of a person's character is how they treat the people in life that they don't need. ~ Lee Corso

Youth should stay away from all evil, especially things that produce wickedness and ill-will. ~ Aristotle.

From the time they hit middle school, they start moving away from home. They are not doing anything wrong; it's just the way they are made. They are becoming independent, and they begin redefining themselves through the eyes other people who are not in their immediate family. The older they get, the more important it is to have other voices in their lies saying the same things but in a different way. ~ Reggie Joiner

Some authority on parenting once said, "Hold them very close and then let them go." This is the hardest truth for a father to learn: that his children are continuously growing up and moving away from him (until, of course, they move back in). ~ Bill Cosby

Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult. ~ Nadia Boulanger

No children are so divine that they do not need responsible parenting and be taught proper manners. ~ Anni Sennov

I am the king. You're the knight sitting at my round table. That's the nature of our relationship when it comes to war or other conflict resolution in this family. ~ Sarah Black

No one said parenting was easy,but NO good parent has any right to give up.It is one labyrinth you can never quit because it seems too hard. ~ Gillian Duce

We expect teachers to handle teenage pregnancy, substance abuse, and the failings of the family. Then we expect them to educate our children. ~ John Sculley

You lose a child and you do understand each other's grief at first, but if you get out of step with each other, it's all over. Suddenly each of you is alone. ~ Alison Bruce

Parents must bring light and truth into their homes by one family prayer, one scripture study session, one family home evening, one book read aloud, one song, and one family meal at a time. They know that the influence of righteous, conscientious, persistent, daily parenting is among the most powerful and sustaining forces for good in the world. The health of any society, the happiness of its people, their prosperity, and their peace all find common roots in the teaching of children in the home. ~ L. Tom Perry

Don't put your child at risk. Limit unsupervised one-on-one time between your child & another adult or another child. ~ Carolyn Byers Ruch

Father to teenage son: My relationship with you is more important than anything I've got to say to you. ~ Randy Alcorn

Perhaps it's human nature: We want to shield our children from pain, and what we get instead is life and heartache and lessons that bring us to our knees. Sooner or later we are handed the brute, necessary curriculum of surrender, we have no choice, then but to bow our heads and learn. We struggle to accept that our children's destinies are not ours to write, their battles not ours to fight, their bruises not ours to bear, nor their victories ours to take credit for. We learn humility and how to ask for help. We learn to let go even when every fiber of our being yearns to hold on even tighter. ~ Katrina Kenison

Oftentimes I felt ridiculous giving my seal of approval to what was in reality such a natural thing to do, sort of like reinventing the wheel and extolling its virtues. Had parents' intuition sunk so low that some strange man had to tell modern women that it was okay to sleep with their babies? ~ William Sears

If you can find time for [other] activities, you can make time for your goals. ~ Beverly K. Bachel

It's a huge change for your body. You don't even want to look in the mirror after you've had a baby, because your stomach is just hanging there like a Shar-Pei. ~ Cindy Crawford

So much of parenting is following your instincts, and taking the time to actually know your child. ~ Nia Long

She understands, too, the loneliness of parenting, which is the loneliness of memory – to know that she connects a future unknowable to her parents with a past unknowable to her child. ~ Chloe Benjamin

Now this is a most satisfactory and important thing to think about, for brutality will not, - cannot, - accomplish what a kindly disposition will; and, if folks could only know how quickly a "balky" child will, through loving and cuddling, grow into a charming, happy youth, much childish gloom and sorrow would vanish; for a man or woman who is ugly to a child is too low to rank as highly as a wild animal; for no animal will stand, for an instant, anything approaching an attack, or any form of harm to its young. But what a lot of tots find slaps, yanks and hard words for conditions which do not call for such harsh tactics! No child is naturally ugly or "cranky." And big, gulping sobs, or sad, unhappy young minds, in a tiny body should not occur in any community of civilization. Adulthood holds many an opportunity for such conditions. Childhood should not. ~ Ernest Vincent Wright

They'd have people out looking for her, and nothing makes grown-ups quite so mad as finding a child safe when they'd been scared silly that they might find that child dead. ~ Jenny Wingfield

The reality is that most of us communicate the same way that we grew up. That communication style becomes our normal way of dealing with issues, our blueprint for communication. It's what we know and pass on to our own children. We either become our childhood or we make a conscious choice to change it. ~ Kristen Crockett

The more we want our children to be (1) lifelong learners, genuinely excited about words and numbers and ideas, (2) avoid sticking with what's easy and safe, and (3) become sophisticated thinkers, the more we should do everything possible to help them forget about grades. ~ Alfie Kohn

Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world's goods in order to spend more time with their children - more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. ~ Julie B. Beck

The bottom line is that kids with too much power feel unsafe. Children with too much influence often become anxious because they feel like they have to control their environment, and they really don't know how. This stress triggers a cascade of toxic neurochemistry. Creating situations in which a child's developing brain is consistently bathed in the stress hormone cortisol is not a wise parenting move. ~ Robin Berman

Parenting forces us to get to know ourselves better than we ever might have imagined we could
and in many new ways ... We'll discover talents we never dreamed we had and fervently wish for others at moments we feel we desperately need them. As time goes on, we'll probably discover that we have more to give and can give more than we ever imagined. But we'll also find that there are limits to our giving, and that may be hard for us to accept. ~ Fred Rogers

They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnoti[z]ed by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keep them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink-
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
It rots the senses in the head!
It kills imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind
He can no longer understand
A fantasy, a fairyland!
His brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!
He cannot think-he only sees!
'All right' you'll cry. 'All right' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
They... used ... to... read! They'd read and read,
And read and read, and then proceed
To read some more, Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!...
Oh books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw ~ Roald Dahl

Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life. ~ Nicholas Kristof

I really like 'Shameless' because it brings up important issues, but we get to talk and laugh and look at something that's really important that's a problem, like alcoholism and bad parenting. It's done in a funny, smart way. ~ Justin Chatwin

An infant is a seed. Is it an oak seed or a cabbage seed? Who knows. All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages. ~ Robertson Davies

What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude. ~ Brene Brown

Every child should be taught how to read, write and think. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Parents don't come full bloom at the birth of the first baby. In fact parenting is about growing. It's about our own growing as much as it is about our children's growing and that kind of growing happens little by little. ~ Fred Rogers

Kindness effects more than severity. ~ Aesop

We are imperfect humans growing imperfect humans in an imperfect world, and that's perfectly okay. ~ L.R. Knost

Father of the fatherless daughter, do not be the lost soul in your daughter's life. Play a major role in your daughter's life. She should always be her daddy's little princess, even when she is old and gray. She deserves to be happy! She deserves to be loved! She deserves joy! And she deserves you! ~ Charlena E. Jackson

It's sad that children cannot know their parents when they were younger; when they were loving, courting, and being nice to one another. By the time children are old enough to observe, the romance has all too often faded or gone underground. ~ Virginia Satir

Screaming at children over their grades, especially to the point of the child's tears, is child abuse, pure and simple. It's not funny and it's not good parenting. It is a crushing, scarring, disastrous experience for the child. It isn't the least bit funny. ~ Ben Stein

SOME OF THE HARDEST parts of parenting never change - like sleep deprivation, which, according to researchers at Queen's University in Ontario, can in some respects impair our judgment as much as being legally drunk. (There's something wonderfully vindicating about this analogy.) ~ Jennifer Senior

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see - or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read. ~ Alice Walker

The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going. ~ George Carlin

Until we accept that our children have much more of a risk of being sexually abused than drowning in a pool, being struck by a car, stricken with cancer, hurt by a vaccination, or diagnosed with ebola, we contribute to a culture of panic and ignorance. ~ Ann Brasco

Leah: I want those gubs Mommy.
Kate: They're not 'gubs' they're 'gloves'
Aaden and Leah try and say gloves
Leah: Gloves!
Kate: Good job!
Aaden: Gubs!
Kate: No ~ Kate Gosselin

A father teaches his children that the battle is not determined by the enemy that stands around them, but by the God Who stands within them. And that lesson can only be driven home as they watch their father stand around them, while God stands within their father. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Earn the respect and confidence of your children through your loving relationship with them. A righteous father protects his children with his time and presence in their social, educational, and spiritual activities and responsibilities. ~ Howard W. Hunter

Father of the fatherless sons and daughters, you should also want the best for your children. You've always been welcomed since day one (when they were conceived). However, it was your choice to be a part of their life or not. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

If you are a parent, open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don't make him afraid of the unknown,give him support. ~ Osho

There are going to be moments today you don't like me. You'll get over it. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

Remember that you are not called to produce successful, upwardly mobile, highly educated, athletically talented machines ... Givi ng your children great opportunities is good; it is not, however, the goal of parenting. Christlikeness is. Above all, seek to raise children who look and act a lot like Jesus. ~ Chip Ingram

Dawn's Spawn:
Cause and Effect
Criticizing the next generation reflects on us. We hold the power to carve out good citizens who will take over the planet and wrest control from us. Step up with your hammer and chisel to create a defined character. Give up your cowardly position as friend and brave the battle of good parenting.
Kamil Ali ~ Kamil Ali

As those of you with children know, rational parenting is like the Loch Ness Monster. We all hope it's out there somewhere, but we don't know anyone who has actually discovered it (and if we do come across someone who claims to have found it, deep down we think that person is a little off. ~ Holly Sprink

Patience is a virtue, just like parenting. We aren't born as parents, we learn how to be patent through our kids. From those lessons comes the wisdom to be patient! ~ Martin R. Lemieux

I know it is hard for you young mothers to believe that almost before you can turn around the children will be gone and you will be alone with your husband. You had better be sure you are developing the kind of love and friendship that will be delightful and enduring. Let the children learn from your attitude that he is important. Encourage him. Be kind. It is a rough world, and he, like everyone else, is fighting to survive. Be cheerful. Don't be a whiner. ~ Marjorie Pay Hinckley

I believe adopting free unstructured play, within an appropriate framework, has rich potential in bringing up happy, well-balanced and resilient children. ~ Iben Dissing Sandahl

My parents were definitely on the incentive side of parenting. Like, they told me that my father had learned to read when he was three. So, of course, I thought I had to, too. ~ Chelsea Clinton

Oh, go ahead and giggle," Lady Danbury sighed. "I've found that the only way to avoid parental frustration is to view him as a source of amusement. ~ Julia Quinn

I get so sick and tired of hearing people gripe about what their parents did to them. You know what your parents did to you? The best thing they could do. The best thing they knew how, the only thing in many cases that they knew how. Nobody has set out maliciously to hurt their child, unless they were psychotic. ~ Leo Buscaglia

It could not have been easy for Mother, an only child, to grow up without a father and with a mother who was remote. Photos of her as a child show her extremely dressed up
Cornie's beautiful little doll. But a daughter, unlike a doll, grows up, and might fall in love with and marry someone her mother does not like; she becomes an individual with her own ideas. ~ Cornelia Maude Spelman

We sucked in atheism with our canned milk. ~ Joy Davidman

Smaller families mean we have more time and money to lavish on each child. Parents are more anxious because small families give them less experience of parenting and put their genetic eggs in fewer baskets. ~ Carl Honore